Football: Brothers survive scare

Two late touchdowns power CBA past Guilderland

Christian Brothers Academy’s Pete Luizzi scores the touchdown that pulled thr Brothers within a point of Guilderland in last Saturday’s Empire Division game in Colonie. Luizzi then threw the two-point conversion pass that gave CBA a 26-25 win.
Robert Goo

COLONIE  The Christian Brothers Academy football team passed its first major test of the 2011 season.

The Brothers (4-0) rallied from a 13-point deficit in the final six minutes to edge Guilderland 26-25 in last Saturday’s Empire Division game in Colonie.

“The kids showed courage in coming off the mat and scoring those two touchdowns,” said CBA coach Joe Burke.

Pete Luizzi came up big for CBA during the rally. He caught a 16-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Tom Cillis to cut Guilderland’s lead to 25-24 and then threw a two-point conversion pass to Tory Williams to give the Brothers the lead.

The decision to go for two points and the win instead of an extra point and overtime came from the players, said Burke. And the play call – a reverse with an option pass – was one that everyone was comfortable with.

“We really work on it all the time,” said Burke. “It’s a regular piece of our scheme. It’s a safe play. From an offensive standpoint, it was a situation where the other team just gave up two touchdowns, and they knew that no matter what had just happened, if they could stop this one play they would win the game. They were scrambling around, though.

“They bit hard on the first handoff, so when we gave it to Pete [Luizzi] there was only one defender between him and Tory [Williams]. Pete could have actually ran it in himself, but he saw Tory was open,” added Burke.

Guilderland (1-3) built a 25-12 lead when Tony Stanish capped a third quarter drive with a 1-yard touchdown run, but that was the last time CBA let the Dutchmen get in the end zone. The Brothers took away Guilderland’s short passing routes and kept the Dutchmen contained on the ground.

“Our goal [going in] was to stop the run, and their plan was to throw it,” said Burke. “It took some time for us to make the adjustment.”